


Frost-edged Fire

by pseudofaux



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, F/F, Minor Original Character(s), Queen in the North, The Howling Crown of the Queen in the North, post-show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 00:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18905350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: The Queen in the North: beautiful, revered, apart.(An imagining of what Sansa might have done after the conclusion of GoT.)





	Frost-edged Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I was very struck by Sansa's coronation scene in the show finale, and the imagery of it (the embroidered weirwood leaves, the crown) was still in my head when I went to sleep. I thought of how Sansa would keep the North secure as she ruled it, and how the loyal northerners would tolerate and protect her. Here we are. :) Please enjoy!

_Queen in the North,_ they proclaimed her. She knew the uselessness of wishing better than anyone in Winterfell, but as she walked under those swords to her throne she wished for the thousandth time that she could curl her fingers in Lady’s fur.

She did not hate men, because she had known good men along with all the others. But she would never trust them. Brienne had gone to serve in the south, oath well and truly kept, leaving no sword sworn to Sansa’s name. Both women knew she had the protection of a hundred swords sworn to her position. Sansa had endured with the North-- the people there knew and remembered that, and were loyal to her. The Northmen insulated her from any harm, and in short order respected that they were not to insulate her from _news_ of harm, or _threat_ of harm. They grew to take pride in it, spoke in hushed voices of the way she didn't flinch. She smiled when she learned it, and then they spoke in hushed voices about that.

Her strict adherence to Northern traditions made the way easier for all of them. She had chosen them, always, once she was able to retake her home, and they had chosen her. It would not be possible to be their queen if she were from Bear Island or from White Harbor, but she was a Stark of Winterfell. The last one left there. And in the ways that mattered to the Northmen, she was the only Stark in the world.

There were counterbalances to the weight of her isolation. She had been alone for a long time by then. When her brothers and sister were in Winterfell in the days before the dead came alive in the crypts, she had been truly happy they were there, Starks together. She had already been alone, though. They loved and were loyal to one another, and that mattered a great deal, but they did not understand one another. They couldn’t. They had all suffered so much. Bran knew things it was impossible to know, but Sansa was best of them at knowing hard truths.

She was a trueborn Stark, but she didn’t look it. Even when her father was still alive, she had begun to learn that beauty was a powerful thing that might call someone to her, inspire them to save her. How tragic that beauty made at least as much trouble as it resolved. Long after her father was gone, her coloring and her features and her rule brought suits for her hand. She rejected them carefully. To the credit of the Northmen, they were wary of kings. The North remembered. It remembered her, too, and they had meant it when they made her queen. So there was no pressure to marry and install a king. They took an unexpected pride in that, too.

Only a few lovers ever tempted her, and she was not a woman to give in to every temptation. When those rare dalliances were finished she rejected her lovers carefully, too. She had learned to do these things neatly and peacefully.

The quiet after the wars was arduous, and a sense of uncertainty remained in the lands where winter’s grip was strong. Her first years as Queen in the North were not easy, but they proved secure for her and for her people. She stayed steady, and beautiful, and _northern_ , and the lands around her regrew to be the same. The growth was slower than anyone liked, and faster than they felt they had reason to hope for after all the loss they had endured. Winterstown was the exception, booming even as she took the throne, built up by survivors and families patched with the many orphans left behind by brave parents.

Several great houses were gone forever. There were fewer families after all their struggles, but they were bigger. The kingdom carried on.

Quietly, she adopted three war orphans herself. She wanted the North to know there was a line to follow her. While she recognized the risk of her heart moving outside her own body, she wanted children, and there were a great many children who needed families. The move set a good example and tied her further to the people, and it spared her the unacceptable risk presented by a _father_ of children. Arlyn and Gemma and little Robbet entered her life already formed, already perfect. To her children, she gave all the love she would not give anyone else. She dreamed more than once of finding a litter of three direwolf pups. When she woke, she smiled at foolishness that lingered so deep only dreams could reach. There were no direwolves south of the Wall that wouldn’t tear out a man's throat.

Smart beasts, given what men had done when they had been allowed direwolves for friends.

She worked to give her children their homeland instead.

Gemma was awed by her dresses and the Howling Crown, and Sansa said nothing to discourage that love of pretty things. After all, she herself loved three beautiful little things. She cupped her daughter’s soft cheek and promised Gemma finer gowns when she was able to keep her hems clean. Her daughter had no love for weapons, but dutifully learned to wield them better than her mother ever did. Sansa occasionally touched the dragonglass spearhead below her pillow in private, silent penance, but otherwise avoided weapons.

Arlyn, who did love weapons (at least as much as he loved all the other things Robb had loved), she allowed to be fostered in the Vale for a time. It was in part to widen his understanding of the world and in part to smooth her rejection of Robin Arynn’s proposal. She knew it was necessary to send the boy away, and she hated it, seethed at the notion behind the stiffness of her face. When he returned to Winterfell two years later, very nearly a man, he still loved her as his mother. Their reunion in the courtyard of Winterfell moved a northern crowd to tears. The sun of Runestone had darkened his skin and lightened his hair, and he had grown to be taller than she was. He still smiled at her and called her mother and asked for his siblings, so she cried her own tears of relief when they were alone. He still understood that, too, because he was of the North, and her son besides.

Robbet was so small it was a miracle he had survived to be adopted, likely the last of the babies born before the army of the dead marched from Last Hearth, and he was quiet for a long time. His first words were tentative little croons he sang on whispers into her ear. As he grew, so did his songs, with beautiful words that were mournful and sweet and sometimes shockingly funny. The castle laughed when he sang, magic crackling in the fires and in the air-- whether it was happiness or some deeper mystery, she did not know or care. She knew the town laughed when he slipped out to sing there, too. He was a kind child, so gentle that he was seven years old before the sharpness of his mind became undeniable. Wolkan hinted several times through the years, but Sansa had only smiled at him.

Wolkan. Sansa decided early on to trust him, and he never broke faith. She realized before she retook Winterfell that there were not so many innocent people in the world she could afford to direct her rage at the Boltons upon a fellow captive. The maester hid none of his relief that she was a kinder mistress, and he proved himself at every turn. He, soft of heart and steel of soul, became a Northman. He crowned her and counseled her as he grew into a wisdom that did more good for the kingdom than anything else Sansa could remember by the time he was gone. When she considered dismantling the Dreadfort and reusing the stones for new buildings because it was practical, it was Wolkan who quietly suggested the castle be destroyed and the land left to go fallow for a few years. They made so many plans for the future of the north, she and Wolkan.

One of the women who helped when the children were young-- Sansa trusted her, too, after a time. Maren was the sort of gentle it was hard to believe existed in the world, especially north of the Neck, but she was ever-discreet and never tested Sansa’s trust. When their fingers were entwined Sansa slept more peacefully than when they were not. It was Maren who saw Sansa’s remaining softness and loved her for it. When the children were grown, she stayed. Maren was shy of most men and avoided court, so there was never a seat next to Sansa's in the great hall. But there was never another person for her after Maren entered her life, either.

She never saw Yohn Royce again after she was crowned, but he was a respectful voice through letters for the rest of his life. She knew her decision not to marry Robin Arryn was a blow, but Lord Royce remained a friend to the Queen in the North and never held her transgressions against her. When Arlyn was in the Vale, Yohn was the one who taught him the most. Since Brienne was unavailable and her father was dead, Sansa thought her son had the best possible instructor.

Gemma and Robbet helped things along in their home while Arlyn was gone. They were children, and adored (in the way Northerners adored), and could move among the people more easily than she could. Sansa arranged for a septa to be with them for a while, but Gemma never wavered in the faith of the Old Gods, and quickly learned all the stitching (helpful) and finery (mostly useless) the septa could teach. The woman was thanked and dismissed. Sansa still prayed to the Mother and the Crone, and sometimes to the Stranger, for her children and her people. But she did most of her praying in the Godswood and she prayed to the old gods, too. It felt like ritualistic wishing all her life, even when her prayers were granted and she was thankful. God-given or manmade, mercy was a sacrament.

She ruled after Bran died, until her own end, when her children were grown and the North was as safe as it had ever been. Arlyn had married a cautious young woman from Ramsgate-- so many girls her age were cautious-- who was comely and devoted. Bittersweetness, always at the back of her tongue, was swallowed away behind true smiles and joy, which tasted like a reasonable slice of lemon cake after so many years of ash. In the dreams of her youth it had never been someone else's wedding she was so happy to be a part of, but truly, it was one of the best days of Sansa's life. They were married by a heart tree. She suspected the King of the Six Kingdoms watched. 

Gemma took no lover Sansa ever learned of. Robbet took too many to count, or let it be believed that was so.

Maren died the year before she did. Sansa was ready, when her end came, and luckier than so many she had known: she was respected, she was loved, she was a Stark of Winterfell, and she was home. She was surrounded by her children and they all knew what would come next. A half-memory of her father's deep voice flitted through her mind, telling her brothers something about the just sleep that comes after a day of just work. Now her watch was ended, she supposed. That was alright. There would be Stark eyes watching out for the North when hers shut forever.

Robbet sang for their family while Gemma and Arlyn held her hands. And then she was gone.

Solemn and careful, her maid snipped her hair, ever-red as Weirwood leaves, shot through with strands of silver that had only appeared in the last year of her life. In the firelight the length looked like steady flame, gilt by frost. The maid was permitted a skein for herself in thanks for her service, and three coils were presented to the children of the Queen in the North. The remaining Starks were dark haired, after all. They put their dark heads together over her deathbed and murmured promises they would keep all their lives.

The North's independence lasted until hardly anyone wished for it to be independent any more, and even then, girls were still sometimes named Sansa and red hair was considered a mark of the gods' favor. There were Starks in Winterfell when it happened, who traced their lineage to their foremother and still knew some of the terrible things she endured to win their kingdom. Some things were forgotten, even from the memory of the North. But many things were known so long that truths became old truths, safe in song, whispered in the woods, howled from the hollows of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> When I looked at stills of the coronation scenes and saw the way the direwolf's head was pointed, I thought "oh, it's the 'Howling Crown'".
> 
> I don't think she would willingly take another husband (though I did half-hope for awhile that she and Tyrion might willingly reunite in marriage, tbh!).


End file.
